The Final Sacrament

by James Forrester

  The boy did not dare to move. He hoped the queen would overlook his presence. Maybe he could slide away when Walsingham left without her even noticing him?

  “Your Majesty,” said Walsingham, “given that I must speak, and urgently, would you permit me to tell Sir William the grave news—that Clarenceux is dead.”

  The queen turned to Cecil. “Clarenceux King of Arms? Is that news sufficient to disturb us?” She turned back to Walsingham. “Do you not realize the gravity of the situation? A prince of the royal blood has been murdered. Lord Henry Stewart might have been a drinker and a philanderer, not to mention a stupid young man, but he was of the royal blood, and now he is dead, killed by whom we know not. What is the death of a herald in comparison? Are you going to interrupt my privy meeting to tell me one of my cooks has died?”

  She glared at him. Walsingham met her gaze, then bowed his head. “Ask Sir William, Your Majesty.”

  Cecil had regained his seat and was sitting, leaning forward, looking down at the infinite space before his mind’s eye.

  “Sir William?”

  Cecil took his time. “Your Majesty, I have something to tell you. Something of even greater gravity than we have been discussing. But the boy should not hear it.”

  “What disrespect is this?” demanded Elizabeth. “Walsingham blasts in here—a man who is not even a peer of the realm and therefore has no right to demand access to my presence—he marches in here, without so much as a dignified word of greeting and demands to speak in private with you. His excuse, if you can call it that…” She did not finish the sentence but addressed Walsingham directly. “The heralds are members of my household, as well you know. If the death of one of them concerns anyone, it concerns me. Now speak quickly. You will explain this fully, here and now.”

  “The boy,” repeated Sir William.

  The boy was staring at the floor, not daring to look up. He heard the queen walk closer to him until the hem of her skirt was in front of him. “Do you have a face?” she asked.

  He looked up and saw her bright red skirts trimmed with cloth-of-gold fanning out from her narrow waist in a wide circle around her ankles. “I am sorry, your Royal Majesty, I heartily beg you—”

  “Shhh, enough,” she said. “Get to your feet.”

  He rose as quickly as he could. He saw a very white cheek lit by the distant light of the candle, the rest of her face in silhouette. He noted the reddish-brown of her hair and the string of pearls around her neck. Her sleeves were close fitting to her arms.

  “Let us walk to the door,” she said.

  He walked unsteadily, too conscious of himself. “Stop,” she said gently. She came up close behind him, put her hands on his shoulders, and whispered in his ear, “You have done the right thing. It was wise to let Mr. Walsingham through. We know he has our best interests at heart. What is your name?”

  “Cleaver,” he said, not daring to turn around. “Ralph.”

  “We will remember you, clever Ralph. We will ask Mr. Edwards to give you a gift in the morning. Now go, and close the door behind you. Tell those outside we are not to be disturbed again.”

  Ralph turned awkwardly, keeping his head down, and bowed to the queen. He left the chamber.

  Elizabeth waited until the door had closed. Then she took a deep breath and walked back to the glow of candlelight where Sir William was seated. Walsingham was now standing beside him, leaning over the gout-stricken man, whispering to him.

  “Do not whisper, Mr. Walsingham,” she said. “It is bad manners. Worse—you are likely to arouse our suspicions.” She paused. “We are owed an explanation at the very least. We would also like to know what you are discussing so quietly. What news do you have for our Secretary—and therefore for us?”

  “Your Majesty,” said Walsingham, straightening himself, “I have to tell you that there was a fire at Thame Abbey on Monday, two days ago, which engulfed part of the monastic buildings. Mr. Clarenceux was inside. I watched, I waited, and I prayed—but he did not leave. My men and I attended the building all afternoon and all night, fighting the fire and preventing it from spreading, but no one inside was able to escape the flames. The heat was too intense. Yesterday morning the refectory was a mass of charred and smoking ruins. We searched the underground drains from the monastery and found a girl there, sheltering from the blaze, and she confirmed that Clarenceux had not left the building.”

  “You are sure?” asked Cecil. “Absolutely sure?”

  Walsingham nodded. “There was no way out of it—no way anyone could have survived it. I had the place surrounded and my men could not get within thirty feet of the walls because of the heat.”

  The queen took her seat beside the fire. “We know that you and Mr. Clarenceux were not close. You and your men let our herald die. Is that not nearer the truth?”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “You were there, guarding the abbey, by your own admission. You stopped Mr. Clarenceux escaping. It suits you well that he is dead, does it not?”

  Walsingham stiffened. “No, Your Majesty, I most earnestly assure you that that is an unfounded accusation. It is true that Mr. Clarenceux and I had our differences, but in the manner of his death, he showed himself to be most loyal, and utterly undeserving of any criticism I have laid at his door over the years. I can explain my past view of him. In serving you, Your Majesty, I must presume some individuals are guilty until I know otherwise. I must sometimes be suspicious even where there is apparent loyalty. In trying a man in court we may presume him innocent, but in investigating a crime we must hold everyone potentially guilty. Mr. Clarenceux was a maverick, and came close to treason on more than one occasion, but ultimately he proved himself innocent.”

  “It is easy to apologize to the dead, Mr. Walsingham. And to see one of our servants do so is distasteful to us. We tend to wonder why the apologizer did not prove as apologetic in life.” She addressed Sir William, seated in his red fur-trimmed robe. “Does your gout permit you to tell me whether we should trust Mr. Walsingham? You use it as an excuse to sit in our presence, but we will not let you keep treason from us.”

  Sir William chose his words carefully. “Your Majesty, Mr. Walsingham has my utmost trust, as you know from the number of his reports that I have laid before you. He is a man who loves nothing more than to uphold your security.”

  “In that case you will understand why we are most concerned that, when we asked him to explain the meaning of this herald’s death, he said that we should ask you. What secrets are you keeping from us, Sir William? If he is trustworthy, what does he mean by telling us to ask you?”

  Cecil sighed. He was used to laying traps for other people, and not used to being caught in one himself, especially not one set by a woman—and a younger woman at that, for Elizabeth was not yet thirty-four. But he was wise enough not to let it show and not to let himself be hastened into saying something he would later regret. He had not survived the calamitous accession of the late Catholic queen, Mary, and made his peace with her, witnessing the execution of his friend the duke of Northumberland and the duke’s daughter, Lady Jane Grey, only to stumble now.

  “Your Majesty, I must crave your indulgence, and your forbearance. I must speak about the succession.”

  “You know that we have forbidden that. To any of our subjects.”

  “I have not forgotten. I also know that you would rather face an unpalatable truth than have it kept from you.”

  “You know us well, Sir William. Speak truly.”

  “William Harley, the late Clarenceux King of Arms, was a man of the old religion. Like most people whose business harks back to the past, to heraldic achievements and rituals of ancestral respect, he did not wish to break with Rome. Nor did he wish to see the churches desecrated and their monuments defaced, the tombs uprooted and the monasteries and chantries demolished, their ancient manuscripts burned—”

 
“Sir William, we must caution you. We are the Supreme Governor of the Church and we intend to exercise our rights in that capacity as freely as our father did. We will stand by those Acts by which corrupt monastic houses were abolished. They were passed for the good of the soul of the kingdom.”

  “Your Majesty, I was merely illustrating what Mr. Clarenceux felt in his heart. I was not moralizing. You need to understand that even a royal officer might be nostalgic, and loyal to other things as well as your royal person. And please, if I may, let me speak without another warning as to the succession. There are no other men in this realm of yours who have worked so assiduously for your safety as the two of us here now. Mr. Clarenceux has long been the subject of our attentions in this regard—for more than three years, in fact.”

  The queen looked at the figure of Walsingham in his filthy clothes, standing not far from Cecil’s chair, then back at Cecil. “Very well, go on.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. The date to which I refer was in December in the sixth year of your reign, 1563. An old man called Henry Machyn, a merchant taylor living in the parish of Little Trinity, gave Mr. Clarenceux a chronicle. That chronicle contained the key to finding a document which touched upon the matter of your succession. To be specific, the document in question relates to the circumstances of your birth. It is a marriage agreement between your mother, the late Queen Anne, and Lord Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland—”

  The queen could not contain herself but spoke with passion. “My mother never married Lord Percy!” She rose to her feet. “What you are describing is nothing more than a rumor which came to my father’s ears. Do not presume to tell me I should believe such lies.”

  Cecil was alarmed by her sudden use of the first person. “Your Majesty,” he said gently, “I suspect you have never been told the full circumstances of your mother’s death.”

  Elizabeth stared at him. She saw the beard, the expression of warmth in his eyes, and recognized the integrity of a loyal subject. She resumed her seat.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. You need to understand this. Originally your father decided to divorce your mother, not to have her tried for treason. I myself have copies of the letters sent home by the Ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor at the time, Eustace Chapuys, who was very well informed. I also heard this from those who were at court at the time. Some of them are still alive—it was only a little more than thirty years ago. The grounds that your father chose for the divorce were that your mother had previously agreed a marriage with Lord Percy.”

  “No!” exclaimed the queen, but her protest was one of unwilling belief, not disbelief.

  Cecil went on. “The information came from your father himself. There is independent verification too. In 1527, when your father arranged his marriage to your mother, the permission from the Roman pontiff carried a special provision. It stated that the marriage would be valid even if she had previously conducted a betrothal with another man. The reason for that provision was that she had confessed to your father that that was exactly the case. She had been betrothed to another man. Therefore the pontiff agreed to sanction your parents’ marriage with just one condition.”

  “One condition?” repeated Elizabeth. “Tell me.”

  “That the earlier marriage had not been consummated.”

  Elizabeth sat motionless, thinking. Both men watched her intently. She rose to her feet and walked toward the fire. “You are now going to tell me that my father discovered that the earlier marriage had been consummated.”

  “He found many people ready to attest that it had been. But you also need to know what happened next. When your father declared that he would divorce your mother on the grounds that she had been previously married—which would, in law, have been a valid reason for divorce—he made a terrible mistake. For no one had considered you, Your Majesty. The law as widely understood and articulated in an Act of 1484, Titulis Regis, rendered the situation thus: because your parents had both been married before to other partners, and because they had subsequently married in secret, you would be—well, you do not need me to speak the word.”

  “Say it, Sir William. Say it as cruelly as you can. ‘Your parents’ marriage was void.’ Tell me I am a bastard. Commit that treason—if you dare! Remind me that my father killed my mother for incest and adultery. My father severed my mother’s head from her body. Do you not see that I will burn with the memory of that fact every day of my life? It is as if my father cut me in two as well. I will never be whole.”

  Cecil took his time. “I am deeply sorry, Your Majesty, but I have to—”

  “And another thing,” said the queen. “Titulis Regis was repealed. It has been cut from the statute books. No trace of it exists any longer, except in certain old chronicles that we have yet to destroy. It does not apply.”

  “Your Majesty,” replied Cecil, “it is not the Act of Parliament itself that is crucial but the law that that Act clarified. Edward the Fifth was deposed because of illegitimacy even before the Act was passed. But you have not understood my main point. When it became apparent that the king was making public the prior matrimonial alliance of your mother, together with the consummation, lawyers hastened to give him advice. They told him that he should not do this. By that course of action, they informed him, he would render you illegitimate and incapable of occupying the throne. That would leave your Catholic sister, Mary, as the sole potential heir to the throne. They advised him to find another way to end the marriage, namely those charges for which your mother was eventually tried. The king, your father, was given a simple choice: to let your mother live in a divorced state and have you declared the child of an illegal union; or to concoct heinous and false charges against your mother and execute her for treason, thereby allowing you to remain a lawfully conceived daughter of the king.”

  “Lies!” shouted Elizabeth. “Though it pains me to recall the fact, my father had me declared a bastard anyway, at the time of my mother’s death. If he contrived to have her executed to save me, why then kill my mother and bastardize me?”

  Cecil looked at Walsingham. He took a deep breath. “Your Majesty, I am bound to speak the truth to you. There were those at court who wanted your mother disposed of and who wanted the king to recognize your Catholic sister as your father’s only legitimate offspring. Thomas Cromwell in particular hoped that, by making your parents’ marriage null and void, he would force your father to re-legitimize your sister Mary, and make her his heir. Cromwell cited certain just and lawful impediments at the time of your parents’ marriage. He meant, of course, the marriage of Lord Percy and your mother. It makes no sense, but your mother was killed for adultery which, according to Cromwell, she could not have committed, not being properly married to your father.”

  Elizabeth brooded. Neither Cecil nor Walsingham could see her face. They heard her slow footsteps as she moved away, and heard the rustling of her dress.

  They waited.

  When she spoke, tears were heard in her voice. “I never believed the lies they said about my mother. I always believed my father was misled, and that he killed my mother as a result of his fear, his gullibility. You cannot know what it is like—to fear all the time, all the time—never to know who is plotting against you until it is too late. My father’s offense was one of ignorance, I believed, not malice to my mother. But I often wondered why she forgave him on her deathbed, for everyone tells me that she did. At her trial she denied every charge laid against her and then, just three days afterward, as she faced death, she prayed for my father—her killer—and called him a gentle prince, and forgave him, and urged no one to speak against her fate. She said her death was lawful—even though she knew that the charges against her were lies and contrary to her plea.” Elizabeth paused and wiped her face again. “And he betrayed her anyway.” She made the sign of the cross. “Now I can see. She was told, wasn’t she? She did it for me. She reconciled herself to my father at her execution, for m
y sake. She pretended that all those accusations were true—to save me.”

  “That is my understanding, Your Majesty,” answered Cecil quietly. “Your mother’s sacrifice was the last thing left to her. Through her death, she saw she could save you. And even though Cromwell betrayed her, she did save you. Everything would have turned out as she hoped, had it not been for one problem. Despite her final speech and confession, there was documentary proof of her previous marriage. It passed from Lord Percy at his death to the man who conducted his funeral, Henry Machyn, an ordinary man. Machyn gave the document to Mr. Clarenceux. That is the problem we face now. At the time of his death, Mr. Clarenceux had possession of that proof.”

  Elizabeth’s mood shifted instantly from one of regret and sadness for her mother to one of cold alarm. “Then where is it now?”

  Cecil looked at Walsingham. “I too would very much like to know.”

  Walsingham looked reluctant to speak. But he had no choice. “Mr. Clarenceux went to Thame Abbey two days ago supposedly to hand the document over to a Catholic conspirator. As Sir William is aware, he gave us prior warning. I was greatly alarmed and had a large number of men standing guard. But as I watched, the building burst into flames—with Clarenceux and his Catholic contacts inside. There was nothing we could do. There were explosions. We formed a chain to bring water from the fishponds to fight the blaze, but the refectory and everything inside it was lost in the intense heat. It was when I heard the explosions that I knew that the fire was not accidental. Clarenceux had led his contacts there to destroy them. The girl whom we found confirmed these things.”

  Elizabeth was silent. “And the document? The supposed proof?”

  “Mr. Clarenceux certainly took it into the abbey. But there were two other people with him, besides the girl: a gentleman by the name of John Greystoke and a woman, whom the girl informed me was called Joan Hellier. Both must have perished in the flames. I presume the document was destroyed with them.”